


Needed

by itsfaberrytaboo (orphan_account)



Series: Needed [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Aftercare, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Established Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Makeup, Maria needs a hug, Natasha Needs a Hug, Not Safe Sane and Consensual, Safewords, Subdrop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 20:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7453459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/itsfaberrytaboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can’t think about that right now, not when her mind is filled with red, red, and her skin sparks with a million tiny flames embedded with deep, wide strokes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needed

It isn’t like she wants it. Or even needs it.

She’s been taught that wants and needs are non-entities, for the most part. She needs food and water. Needs the restroom, needs a shower every once in a while. Needs transportation to get from point A to point B, needs SHIELD and The Avengers to help save the world.

That last one she’s figured out on her own.

(She practically hobbles into the apartment. She knows she’s bleeding, can feel it through her clothes.)

As far as what she wants… she’s not used to thinking about that. When she was younger she thought she wanted to neutralize the target, but… no, she _needed_ to. Now?

(She wants the bed. She stumbles through the living room shedding her clothes: little black dress, black stockings, black high heels. She rips the collar from her neck with shaking fingers. Every inch of her skin sizzles with pain like she’s been flash-burnt. She takes the second left from the hallway and falls face-first onto the bed. The jolt makes her cry out; she muffles her scream with the pillow. She breathes in, hard, and is startled when a strangely familiar scent fills her nostrils and she realizes: she hadn’t slept _here_. This was someone else’s bedroom.)

Now she wants pasta for dinner, because she’s found herself to be a voracious lover of any Italian food. She wants real-crime documentaries and _really_ hopes that she never tunes in to one and finds out that it’s about her, because that would be awkward. She wants late-night movies and popcorn with Steve, because he has so much to catch up on, and in a way, so does she. They started with the forties, everything he’d missed in his own decade. They’re up to the sixties now; she thinks she enjoys that era more than he does, but they haven’t hit Woodstock yet.

She wants to be able to come and go on her own time, and not have to worry about a handler – Coulson or Madame B., sometimes she feels like they’re all the same – getting onto her. She wants to sleep too much, to not get enough, she wants to sit on the floor in her boxers and eat cereal that’s way too sugary while watching cartoons.

(She wants the pain to stop.)

There are other things she thinks she wants, but she regards _those_ things with a kind of cool detachment. Because it’s nice to dream about, when she’s alone and in her own bed – no handcuffs attached. But that’s all they are, dreams. She’s had those before.

(She tries to roll over onto her side; her skin touches the bedsheets and soft as they are, it feels as if she is ripping, tearing. She stifles another scream and moves back onto her stomach. Her pillow is soaked with tears. She realizes she is clutching her phone, white-knuckling it. None of this is a feeling she wants.)

She wants to erase the red from her ledger. She knows that’s why she does this.

(“My safe word is _krasnyy._ ”

“Russian. I like that. But we don’t need safe words tonight.”

“That’s not how I work.”

“Oh? How do you work?”

She smiles. A smirk, really. Silly man, he thinks she’s the mouse in this game.

He’s oily, slick.

But she’s the cat.

“However you want. But I do have _some_ limits.”

“Let’s discover what they are, shall we?”)

Natasha flips the phone over in her hand.

Dials the number.

The smell of _her_ floods Natasha, and she remembers. _She’d_ slept here, this had been her bedroom.

She clings to that memory, that scent, holds on to it.

(The pain doesn’t stop.)

“Hill.”

She tries to speak; her throat is dry. She tries to swallow. Her voice comes out in a squeak.

“Beat.”

“Natasha? What’s going on?”

She tries again. This time she’s louder, more insistent.

“Beat.”

It’s one a.m., she knows she’s probably woken up Maria. Probably worried her. She can’t think about that right now, not when her mind is filled with red, red, and her skin sparks with a million tiny flames embedded with deep, wide strokes.

She hears shuffling, as if Maria is climbing out of bed, going for her clothes. Natasha thinks for a split second that perhaps there is someone else with her.

She wants Maria to be alone.

“Romanoff, where are you?”

She smiles faintly. Now Maria sounds less worried and more like the commander that she is. Deputy director of SHIELD. Natasha feels fuzzy, like she normally does on weekends like this, but around the fuzziness is tinged the pain, and the shortness of Maria’s tone is like an anchor.

She needs that. She _wants_ that.

“Beat,” she says once again. “Remember? You had a martini.”

There’s a pause, then a gasp of recognition.

“Natasha, are you in _New York_?”

“Mm-hmm,” she hums, almost childishly. “You had a martini, and I laughed at you.”

“You’re… did you go to the club?”

She closes her eyes.

(She says the word.

It hurts. She doesn’t like how it hurts.

He doesn’t stop.

She yells the word, desperate.

“Remember, I said no safe words, bitch.”

She reacts.

She is the Black Widow. Stupid man, if he’d wanted to hold her he should’ve bound her.

All too easy to spin around, in spite of the agony screaming from the back of her legs and crisscrossing her spine.

He yelps when her hand connects with his nose.

She picks up her shoes.

“Everyone deserves safety.”)

“ _Krasnyy_ ,” she mumbles. “ _Krasnyy_ , _krasnyy_.”

She can hear Maria’s slight intake of breath again, sounding almost like a whimper; not unlike the sounds Natasha was making earlier, she muses.

“What are you doing?” Maria says to herself, and Natasha can almost see the shake of her head.

“It’ll take about an hour for me to get there. Hang on till then, okay, baby? I’ll be there, Natasha.”

“Don’t leave me,” she says. At that moment she can’t think of wanting anything more than to keep hearing Maria’s voice, because it’s the only thing that is soothing the jangled nerves rocketing through her at the moment.

“Natasha, what did you do?”

“Stuff.”

Maria sighs. “Stuff, right.”

“Yep.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Wish I was, but nope.”

“All right. Listen, try to rest, okay? I’ll stay on the phone.”

“Kay.”

She sits the phone next to her ear and breathes in heavily. She needs to pee, she realizes, but she doesn’t want to – can’t – move.

She can hear more rustling, sounds that tell her things are being packed, that Maria is moving around her apartment in preparation to leave.

“Still with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’m going to keep checking on you, but we don’t have to talk, all right?”

(She tasted blood when he slapped her. Hadn’t been the first time.)

“All right. Maria?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

(She thanks them all, afterward. Usually. Some of them smile and say “You’re welcome,” which is weird. Some of them apply cream and scan her face, looking for any sign of hurt or drop. And some… just open the door and wait for her to leave.

She likes those the most.)

She feels herself drifting in and out of a restless sleep. She stays slightly cognizant of Maria’s presence, bolstered by the sounds of doors closing, motors running, Maria gently asking “Still with me?” every few minutes.

It strikes her that Maria probably thinks she’s dying.

She’d laugh at it, if it didn’t feel a little like she was.

Moments later, or so it seems, she’s awakened by the sound of yet another door opening and closing.

She hears footsteps.

(“We’re just getting started, girl.”)

She doesn’t turn her head. But she hears it, clear as day.

“Oh my god. What the hell happened?”

She feels Maria’s hand in her hair.

(He jerks her head back, roughly.

Sneers at her.

“You like this, don’t you?”

No.

She really doesn’t.)

Finally, she turns her head. Looks up through half-conscious eyes – she really does feel like passing out – and sees Maria. She’s wearing jeans and a tank top, a leather jacket. She’s horrified, staring down at Natasha as if she hardly recognizes her.

Natasha thinks she’s never looked more beautiful.

She attempts to speak, but her tongue is grainy and stuck to the roof of her mouth. She sinks back onto the pillow, keenly feeling the loss when Maria disappears from sight. Natasha hears water running from the bathroom; she’s relieved when Maria comes back carrying a cup, and helps raise her head so that Natasha can drink.

She drains it, without stopping to breathe.

“I guess he didn’t understand Russian,” she tries to joke, but it’s feeble, not to mention pointless. When Maria was on the phone maybe Natasha had a chance to play it off.

Now she’s here. Now she can _see_. It isn’t as if Natasha can hide anything, after all. She’s naked, laid bare.

“Are those _cane marks_?”

(Thicker than she’d like. Not springy. Stiff, unyielding. She’s tense, bent over as she tries to watch him walk, the implement in his hand. She should be relaxed, prepared. She should trust.

She doesn’t trust him.)

“Yeah.”

She can imagine what Maria sees. Bloody lines across the back of her thighs, one in particular that cuts deep into her sit-spot. She’ll be feeling that one for a while. Natasha imagines that her skin is a map of bruises, an unnatural purple that, thankfully, will fade into blue, then green, then yellow, soon enough. It doesn’t _feel_ like soon enough, not right now.

“Nat, he hit your back!”

She turns her face into the pillow again.

(“Don’t do anything on my back. That’s a limit.”

“Hard limit?”

“I said, don’t do anything to my back.”)

“I never—“

“I know,” Natasha hurries to say, mostly because she doesn’t want to be reminded. “You would never, Maria, I know.”

“You need to go to the hospital.” Maria sounds shaky, which sends shivers up Natasha’s spine.

If she’s scared, she knows there’s good reason.

“No.”

“Natasha, he – was it a he?”

“Mm-hm.”

(Usually it’s a woman. They’re softer, even when they’re beating her. It’s reassuring.)

“He could’ve damaged you, we need to get you checked out.”

“No hospital.”

“Romanoff—“

“If any of my internal organs were fucked, I think I’d know.”

She makes it a practice of knowing just how much she’s hurt. It’s why she picked up the phone.

Mostly.

“Well, it’s good to see you’re still damn stubborn as always,” Maria says wryly.

This elicits a laugh. Strained, but a laugh nonetheless.

“You saw me two days ago, Hill, you know me.”

She feels the bed shift as Maria sits next to her, fingers still carding gently through Natasha’s hair. She always did love doing that.

Natasha always loves when she does that.

“What do you need?”

Natasha considers this.

“Bathroom,” she decides. “And I think I should probably shower.”

“Okay. Come on, I’ll help you.”

She feels Maria’s hand on her arm, coaxing her to a sitting position. Natasha raises up; she can’t help but cry out at the pain and she bites her lip against it, so hard she can taste blood for the second time that night.

Maria shakes her head again.

“It’s all right,” she says quietly. “If you need to cry, you can.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to.”

“I know.”

Maria puts her arm around Natasha’s waist and carefully, slowly leads her from the bedroom to the bathroom. Every step seems like a mile; it’s like she ages ten years by the time she feels the cool tile underneath her feet.

The deputy director of SHIELD guides the Black Widow onto the toilet, then politely steps out into the hallway, which makes Natasha snort a little. She guesses it is a little indelicate, but honestly, the whole situation is strange enough.

She calls Maria back when she’s finished.

“Do you want a bath or a shower?” Maria asks.

“Shower.”

“It’s going to hurt,” Maria warns.

“Yeah, I know. I might…”

Natasha looks down at her feet.

“I need help.”

(“Hey, are you okay?”

She’s a cute little submissive, with a silver collar around her neck. A lock in the shape of a heart dangles in the center.

It makes Natasha jealous.

“Yeah, thanks.”

She says it through gritted teeth. She’s not okay.

“You sure? Do you need help?”

“I don’t need anything.”)

Maria nods at her, moves to turn the shower on. She adjusts knobs, sticks her hand in and tests the temperature until she’s satisfied. Then she undresses.

Her eyes never leave Natasha’s.

Goddamn, she’s gorgeous.

“Ready?”

“No. But it’s my own fault.”

Maria doesn’t ask what she means as Natasha takes her outstretched hand. They step into the shower, and Natasha is grateful when Maria positions herself under the spray, protecting Natasha from it at first, with her hand securely against Natasha’s waist. The body wash and shampoo that Maria had bought is still on the shelf, half-empty, and Natasha smiles a little. Memories of strawberry and shea butter make her heart hurt along with her skin.

Maria doesn’t need it but she washes her hair anyway, which is probably a little difficult because her other hand doesn’t move from Natasha’s waist. But she manages it, and then looks at her with sadness and something else that Natasha isn’t sure of.

“Ready?” she asks again.

Natasha hesitates, then nods.

Maria shifts their position and moves Natasha under the water. The spray hits her skin in full force, heated bullets against broken skin.

She screams.

Her knees buckle, but Maria catches her, holds her up.

“I got you,” she’s saying, holding her as tightly as she can manage, because Natasha’s _finally_ letting herself really cry.

It fucking _hurts_.

“I got you, it’s all right, you’re going to be okay.”

(“Stop, please.”

“I told you we’re just getting started.”)

She lets Maria pull her back into a standing position; she closes her eyes and tries to relax, feeling the water course over her until finally it’s as if she’s numb to everything. Everything except Maria’s naked body against hers, and Natasha’s hands lift until they find Maria’s back. Her fingers curl, digging in only a little.

When she speaks again, Maria’s voice is steady.

“All right. I’m going to wash you. It’s going to hurt, but I’m right here. And you’re going to be fine.”

She’s assertive. Sure of herself. This is the Maria Natasha knows. This is the Maria who has control of the situation, who has a plan. This is the Maria Natasha—

“Okay.”

“Okay. Keep your hands on me, I’m going to do your hair first.”

It seems absurd; her hair is the least of Natasha’s worries. But she’s content to let Maria do whatever she wants, and it’s soothing, anyway. It’s familiar, Maria taking control. It had always seemed… just natural. Even the first time six years ago, when brand-new SHIELD recruit and former Black Widow Natasha Romanoff had accompanied Maria Hill on an op to a BDSM club in New York.

(The place was clean. Impeccably, almost surgically clean, which _did_ lend an almost clinical atmosphere to the whole thing. If she closed her eyes and thought very hard about it, she felt as if she could detect a hint of strange hospital smell, mixed with the sweat, alcohol, and overly-eager perfume and cologne that surrounded them.

Not that she minded the scent of her partner, curiously. The dark-haired woman was wearing something that reminded her of spring, notes of flowers and rain that spoke of April, and seemed altogether out of place here. It was too sweet, too _good_. She’d have to tell her to change it to a spray that was more fitting of this place, this club. This _scene_. It would disappoint her when she did change it though. It was weirdly comforting, the displacement of it. Her partner was _innocent_ of whatever this was. Asking her to change her perfume would be almost like taking someone’s virginity, replacing it with something a little less… naïve. A little less perfect.

Music pulsed through the air but it wasn’t loud, not desperate and heart-pounding like it was in all the other clubs she was used to. London. San Francisco. Moscow. They were all swaths of blinding purple and red lights, “songs” with bass that could rupture your eardrums, scantily-clad (if clad at all) girls on sleek stages, and sex on the dance floor. This one though… this one had wooden floors, and for fuck’s sake, it was _waxed_. She could almost see herself in it: red hair, white shirt with navy blue ribbon tied into a demure bow on the front, navy pleated skirt. Finish it all off with some black stockings and high heels, and the schoolgirl look was complete. Oh, it was cliché as hell, but it had the desired effect. The patrons sat on the high chrome stools at the bar, or nearly swallowed by the soft brown leather couches against the walls, could barely take their eyes off her.

Some things never changed. She smirked, and sure, maybe her hips did sway a little more as she and her partner made their way through the club, drinks in hand, nodding at someone here and there. They had to look like they were used to this sort of thing, after all.

Then again, she noted with a little amusement, some of them weren’t looking at _her_ at all.

Some of them were looking at Maria, black leather pants and a white shirt, looking every inch like someone who was used to calling the shots.

And, Natasha thought to herself as Maria lifted her chin, indicating that they should go further to the left inside the club, maybe she was, after all.

And maybe she didn’t mind.)

“I miss you,” she blurts out.

Maria’s hands still, only for a moment.

“Nat, don’t.”

“Yeah, I know, sorry. I shouldn’t have called. Woke up you and whoever.”

Maria sighs and resumes washing Natasha’s hair. She’s gentle, so infinitely gentle; Natasha used to marvel at how those hands could be so gentle and so demanding at the same time. She’d relished the dichotomy, how unpredictable and yet purposeful Maria could be.

Blue eyes meet Natasha’s green ones.

“You should have called. And you’re an idiot.”

“Thanks?”

“There isn’t a whoever,” Maria says. “I’m not dating anyone.”

“Oh.”

Her body feels heavy, her knees weak from the strain of standing up. Natasha knows what this is, though she doesn’t want to admit it. She’s never fallen this hard before.

Maria never let her fall this hard.

“But I miss you too.”

“I’m sorry.”

And she is, so painfully sorry. It’s been a _year_ , for god’s sake, and she’s ripped herself and Maria out of their polite work repartee because she’s dumb enough to go to a club called _Beat_ and have someone do just that.

Nearly every weekend.

For a _year_.

“I need to wash you,” Maria only says, ignoring Natasha’s apology – as she has done for a year.

“Do you think you can handle it?”

“Let’s just get it over with.”

Maria forgoes the roughness of a washcloth or a loofah to save Natasha’s wounded skin, instead lathering up her hands, but Natasha still hisses from the sting. She closes her eyes, trying to concentrate on how lightly Maria touches her, how quickly she cleans her.

She’s done in moments, and Natasha opens her eyes when she feels Maria nudge her shoulder.

“Come here,” she says.

She lets herself slump into Maria’s arms, resting her forehead against the other woman’s collarbone.

“Natasha, what are you doing?”

“You called me baby,” is Natasha’s answer; she’s just remembered it.

Maria is quiet for a long time. Her arms are tight and steady around Natasha.

“Yes, I did.”

Natasha shrugs. “Just wanted to feel,” she mumbles.

“Feel what?”

“Something, anything.”

“So you’ve been coming to New York, to the club, every weekend?”

“Almost. Fury keeps me away from it sometimes.”

Once again Maria doesn’t laugh at the “joke.”

“So you come to New York on the weekends, to go to a club and… have people do things to you. Is it… is it about sex?”

“I don’t let them fuck me,” Natasha says hotly. “They can smack me around or tie me up or whip me, but they can’t touch me, not like that.”

“All right, I’m sorry,” Maria soothes, still holding Natasha close to her.

“But why do you do it?”

She’s not in the mood for this conversation. The water in the shower is getting cold, and if she wasn’t pressed tightly to Maria for the first time in a year, Natasha would move. But it’s not like anyone else has ever asked why she does this. When you’re in one of the back rooms at Beat, the rooms that have locks on the doors, no one cares why you’re there.

“Because I miss you. And it’s my fault that I miss you.”

“Nat—“

“I wanted to say it, you know? I wanted to say it but I couldn’t. It’s just three words, right? I’ve been talking since I was two, so why couldn’t—“

“Natasha, hush.”

A year hasn’t changed her that much; she still takes orders and looks down at her feet while doing so.

A feather-light finger tucks under her chin in the freezing cold shower, and raises her face.

Maria has tears in her eyes.

Natasha’s ex-girlfriend leans forward and brushes the softest, most tender of kisses on her lips, carefully avoiding the reddened, split corner.

“I s-still want to say it.”

Her teeth are chattering, which seems to jolt Maria back to reality; she shuts off the water and ushers Natasha out of the shower, reaching for two towels that miraculously are still hanging. Maria wrings the wet out of her own hair before quickly tucking the towel into itself around her chest, then takes the second towel and dries Natasha’s hair. She wraps it around Natasha’s shoulders; as soft as the fabric is – because Maria Hill loves fluffy towels – she knows how terrycloth would feel to a caned ass.

“Let’s go lie down,” she says. “I’ve brought some cream that might help.”

“Still have your bondage tac bag?” Natasha says sarcastically.

It strikes her that perhaps Maria has it for someone else.

But didn’t she just…

Maria gives her a look, one that tells Natasha two things: Maria is tired of her shit, and Natasha has nothing to worry about.

That bag has probably lain untouched for the last year. It comforts her, and it saddens her. Maria deserves better.

Natasha is no longer shivering, and Maria unwraps the towel to lay it on the bed, and motions to Natasha.

“On your stomach.”

“Yes, Commander.”

She says it cheekily, says it to be funny and to lighten some of the tension in the room. But it makes Maria stand rigid, brings such an expression of pain to her face that Natasha wishes she could take it back.

“I’m sorry, I—“

“Lie down, please.”

She does as she’s told, folding her arms and resting her cheek on them. She closes her eyes with a sigh.

She hears Maria pick up her phone; Natasha is surprised when the woman orders pizza, gives them directions to the apartment. Leave it to Maria to know a 24-hour pizza joint. To understand that Natasha is starving.

Natasha startles a little when, after the phone call, Maria’s hand, warm and soft, cups the back of her neck.

How long has it been since she felt that?

It has the desired effect, as always. She stops squirming, stops trying to talk. Her body still feels heavy but her mind seems lighter. She doesn’t have to think about anything anymore. She doesn’t have to _do_ anything anymore.

Maria has control.

(“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Are you?”

“You’re not the only one who liked being at the club, Nat.”)

_Oh, thank God._

“Will you do something for me?”

(“Will you do something for me?”

“What?”

“Don’t ever call me a good girl.”)

“What?”

She hears Maria rifling through her bag, can hear the sound of a bottle being uncapped.

Natasha steels herself.

“Yell at me.”

“… what?”

“Yell at me, lecture me, tell me how much I suck, ask me why I left, _something_.”

(“You’re just a little slut, aren’t you?”

“Bend over, bitch.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come, baby? You might like it.”

“Such a good girl, that’s a good girl.”

She doesn’t care what they say to her at the club. It doesn’t matter.)

“This is going to hurt,” Maria says instead.

Natasha nods. She still whimpers when the coldness of the cream meets the heat of ass and thighs.

“I know, I know.”

Maria’s voice has taken on a different tone, and Natasha tenses up, a little. Maria feels it, lays her cool wet hand just on the small of Natasha’s back.

“Relax, _myshka_.”

The idea of Maria calling Natasha a mouse was really ludicrous, and Natasha had laughed out loud the first time Maria had suggested it. But now… now it brings hot tears to her eyes and she sniffles in spite of herself.

“Ready?”

Natasha nods.

“Say it, Natasha. Red, yellow, or green.”

“ _Zheltyy_ ,” Natasha responds immediately, as if it requires no thought at all. “Just… it hurts.”

“I’ll go slow. You’re doing well, Nat.”

No, she’s really not, Natasha wants to say. She wants to say that she fucked up, she wants Maria to yell at her that she fucked up, that they had a good thing going for five years and then Natasha wussed out and ran off. She wants Maria to say that if Natasha can’t handle being in a relationship then she sure as hell doesn’t deserve to be on her knees, or on her stomach in an old SHIELD hideout while Maria rubs soothing ointment on her skin.

Instead, Maria only keeps saying it.

“You’re doing so well. You’re so brave, I’m so proud of you.”

“I’m not brave.”

“You are,” Maria insists. “I know how much it took for you to call.”

“About 30 minutes and twenty lashes.”

Maria ignores this. “Why _did_ you call me?”

“Not like anyone else would understand,” Natasha answered, but she wasn’t joking.

She concentrated on the feel of Maria’s hands, gently rubbing over her ass, her thighs, her back.

There was no way Fury would understand this at all, or Cap. Steve even seemed to find the idea of rough sex confusing, though Natasha figured he’d warm to it once he’d experienced it. Besides, what would she have told them?

(“Why are you here?”

“I’m not here to _talk_.”

“Suit yourself.”)

She wasn’t even sure if she could explain it to Maria.

“You’re doing so well. You’re lying so still, I’m so proud of you. Only a little longer, Natasha, you’re doing fantastic.”

“Can’t you just be mean to me?”

“Is that why you went? Because you thought you needed someone to be mean?”

Maria’s fingers hit a particular tender spot and Natasha winces; Maria moves her hand away and whispers soothing words of praise that Natasha hates, and wants.

“I needed control. Not like… I can control myself. But I wanted… _that_. Because I didn’t have it anymore and I was so fucking stupid it to throw it all away just because I couldn’t admit that I love you.”

There’s no response, but only because Maria is finished massaging Natasha’s torn skin, and moves into the bathroom to wash her hands. Her footfalls are slow and steady when she returns; her hand at the nape of Natasha’s neck and then running through her hair is the same.

She sits on the edge of the bed next to Natasha; she strokes her hair over and over until Natasha’s body melts like butter into the mattress. The entire time, Maria doesn’t stop speaking.

“That’s it, get some rest. There you go, it’s all right. You’ve done so well, Natasha. You’ve been so strong. You’re always so strong, aren’t you, _myshka_? You’re doing so well, I’m so proud of you. Just rest, it’s all right.”

She slips away for fifteen minutes maybe, not scared to sleep when Maria’s hand stays in her hair, when she stays sat next to her.

The doorbell rings and Maria gets up to answer it; Natasha feels her absence as painfully as a welt.

But in minutes she’s back, bearing a large with extra cheese, some paper plates, paper towels, and a jug of water.

“How are you even carrying all of that?” Natasha wonders, and Maria grins.

“I am a woman of many talents.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Maria rolls her eyes and helps Natasha sit up, fluffing two pillows behind her back so that she can lean against the headboard.

“Do I want to know how long it’s been since you’ve eaten?”

“Probably not.”

“Didn’t think so.”

Maria sits a plate with two enormous slices on Natasha’s lap before she sits next to her, prepared to tuck into her own food.

Natasha stares down at her plate.

“Natasha, eat.”

“You shouldn’t have come.”

“Can we not do thi—“

“I shouldn’t have called, and you shouldn’t have come. Should’ve just left me here. I could’ve handled it myself. I always do.”

“Yes, you do,” Maria says, around her mouthful of pizza. It makes Natasha smile, a little.

“You come to New York most every weekend to let people whip you, and when you show up at work, there’s not even a hint that any of this was going on.”

“If you’d known?”

“You’re a grown woman and we’re not dating anymore. And like you said, you can handle it.”

“Yeah.”

She picks up a slice of pizza, takes a tentative bite of it. It’s good, so good that she’s inhaling both pieces before she even has time to realize.

Natasha hears Maria chuckle.

She grins. Slows down. Asks it again.

“If you’d known?”

Maria stops eating and stares off into space for the longest time.

“I would have tried to stop you. It’s not healthy, and it’s not safe.”

(“Wait, we have to write stuff down?”

“Everything I’ve read says that we should know our limits and have safe words and rules.”

“I mean I thought you’d just bend me over and shit.”

“Pick up a pen, Romanoff.”)

Natasha isn’t sure when anything about her has ever been healthy, really. She thinks the best glimpse of it had been when she was with Maria. Then she was learning things she hadn’t really ever given thought to: patience; romance; the best way to twist her fingers to make Maria’s eyes roll back in her head. How to not feel awkward at breakfast in bed, how to deal with being loved. How silk rope would feel; how wonderful a drink of water could be after being gagged for an hour.

She looks over and catches Maria toying with the collar; it’s a cheap thing, black and thin. More of a choker, really. The expression on Maria’s face is one of distaste.

“What?” Natasha says.

Maria tosses it back onto the bedside table, looking as if she’d rather throw it in the trash. “This isn’t you,” she says.

“Do you really know what’s me?”

“Has that much changed in a year?” Maria shoots back, and this is what Natasha has realized she loves so fiercely about Maria Hill.

That she gives as good as she gets.

“You’ve never been the kind of submissive to wear a collar. You don’t get on your knees easy, all “Yes Mistress, thank you Mistress, may I kiss your boots, Mistress?”

“Do you want me to?”

She remembers what it’s like to look up at Maria from the floor. Maria, sweet Maria, would always give her a pillow to kneel on. Not because she thought Natasha needed it, but because she wanted to, and that was her rule to make. And Natasha’s to deny, if she really didn’t like it, but it had always been strange to her, that she craved Maria’s kindness even more than she did her belt.

(“Godddamn motherfucking hell, that hurt!”

She feels Maria place her hand on the back of her neck, squeezing firmly. Not roughly. Then the hand moves down to her ass, stroking away the fire that had been left by the blow.

“You need to watch your mouth, _myshka_.”

Natasha can hear her smile.

“Yes, Commander.” She looks over her shoulder, at Maria, standing ready with her belt in her hand.

Natasha stretches out her arms, rests her head on Maria’s desk.

What would Fury think, if he knew?

“Do it again.”

Silence. Natasha rolls her eyes.

“Do it again, _please_.”

Maria does.)

Maria lets out a puff of air, crumples up her empty paper plate and throws it into the wastebin.

“My boots are too dirty for you to kiss. But I do miss you on your knees.”

“Yeah?”

Maria looks at her; Natasha thinks it’s the first time she’s _really_ looked at her in the last couple of hours.

“I’ve been waiting years for you to say that you _need_ me. _That’s_ why I came.”

They move as one, shifting until they are skin to skin in each other’s arms, and Natasha presses her bruised lips to Maria’s. She doesn’t have the strength for anything more than that, and always Maria understands, because she pulls Natasha tighter to her and holds the back of her head.

“Don’t do this anymore,” she whispers, and Natasha can feel the droplets of tears against her neck.

“Natasha, please, please don’t do this anymore.”

“I just… thought I should be punished for what I put you through.”

“If I knew you were thinking that I’d have whipped you myself.”

It’s a joke, but Natasha thinks that would’ve been infinitely preferable than all of these other weekends alone.

“Can we… can we try again?”

Her eyelids are fluttering closed; outside, morning will soon crest over the horizon. She hears Maria sigh, and then she is laid, ever so gently, on her stomach again. Her head finds the pillows and she moans at the softness.

She feels Maria drape first the sheet, then the light blanket, over Natasha’s body, taking care that it doesn’t fall too roughly over her skin. Over and under and around her is Maria’s perfume, in the bed and next to her, and it doesn’t feel ridiculous when she actually snuggles into the covers, and yawns a little.

“Sleep. We’ll talk more when we’ve both rested.”

“You’re not leaving are you?” Natasha’s eyes fly open; she’s alarmed that she sounds distressed, even anguished.

“I mean you’re going to sleep in here, right? And you’ll be here?”

“Shh.” Maria smooths her hair again. Lays down next to her.

Pauses, then drapes her arm loosely over Natasha’s waist.

“Go to sleep, _myshka_. You’ve done so well.”

When she opens her eyes again, it feels like it’s past noon. The sun hurts her eyes, and her body is sore, a kind of sore that she’s never felt, because Maria always knew when to stop.

She’s not in the bed; instead, Maria is sitting in a chair across the room, just watching her. With anyone else it would be creepy, but Natasha knows that Maria is watching for any hint of pain, any sign of drop or agony or need. She thinks of all the times in the last year Maria has checked in on her, has called during ops to make sure things are going well. She remembers the looks she could see Maria giving her in the hall, in conference rooms, in the command center.

She remembers all the times Maria would look down at her lovingly, her fingers concerned and probing as she checked Natasha for injuries, rubbed cream on her skin, wiped tears away with her thumbs.

(“Crying is good. If I don’t cry that means I don’t trust you.”)

Natasha puts her arm behind her head, leans up a little, looks over at her ex-girlfriend.

“Red, yellow, or green?” she asks.

Can we try again?

Maria gets up and moves back to the bed. She’s no longer naked; she’s in jeans and a tee-shirt and she looks like she hasn’t gotten a minute of sleep. Natasha’s pretty sure the woman has stayed up the entire time and made sure _she_ rested.

Maria shakes her head. Shakes her head even while her hand is running through bright red locks yet again, down Nat’s cheek and her neck, past her shoulder and over her arm, until she reaches Natasha’s own hand.

Maria tangles their fingers together.

“Green.”

Natasha smiles.

“What about you?”

Maria’s eyes are cautious, a deeper blue than Natasha has seen. She’s worried that it’ll all end up the same way: that she’ll wake up again with a note that simply says I can’t do it. But she’s taken the leap anyway, and so Natasha raises Maria’s hand to her lips and decides maybe this time, jumping together is the best idea.

“ _Zelenyy_.”

(“Natasha, do you love me?”)

Yes. Yes and yes and yes.

Yes.


End file.
